NEMA Currents

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Ann Brandstadter, Manager, Standards Publications and Marketing, NEMA NEMA GMOD 1-2018 Reviewing the Business Case and Cost Recovery for Grid Modernization covers grid modernization investments, summarizes the benefits of grid technologies, and documents cost recovery mechanisms and business cases. It is available at no charge to NEMA Members and to the general public in hard copy and electronic download Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Craig Updyke, Director, Trade and Commercial Affairs, NEMA As noted in “Outlook for 116th Congress” (page 16), Congress is expected in 2019 to consider the new U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), intended as a modernization of and replacement for the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). At present, the prospects are colored by competing priorities: on one hand, demands for changes Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Mike Stone, West Coast Field Representative, NEMA In the Western United States, approximately 80 utilities collaborated with the Electric Utility Service Equipment Requirements Committee (EUSERC), which was formed in 1983 by the merger of two different groups in Southern and Northern California that had been active since the 1940s. There are 14 Western states that have utility members represented Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Brian Marchionini, PMP, Senior Program Manager, NEMA Smart grid devices, systems, and applications require extensive data exchange, necessitating well-defined interfaces to transfer and translate this data from point to point across the grid. Clarifying the communications protocol and data model performance requirements is essential to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Gerard Winstanley, Program Manager, NEMA The NEMA Capacitor Section is initiating a project to develop a new Standard for direct current power capacitors rated ½ kVAR and larger. The Capacitor Section is part of the Utility Products & Systems Division and covers the use of power capacitors for power factor improvement and harmonic filtering. Power capacitors are used in power generation, transmission Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Jonathan Stewart, Industry Director, Utility Products & Systems Division, NEMA Just as the electrical power grid is developing into a system of systems with millions of interconnected parts, so, too, is the NEMA Utility Products & Systems Division moving toward an integrated coalition of product Sections. The Division is creating a Leadership Committee that reflects a movement within NEMA Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. In 2016, NEMA published NEMA MGRD 1-2016 Powering Microgrids for the 21st- Century Electrical System, a white paper introducing the concept of microgrids as an integral component of the power delivery system of the 21st century. Microgrids, once viewed as islanded systems of generation and load, valued mostly for their ability to disconnect from the grid and serve individual customer facilities during Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Garry Golden, Futurist, Forward Elements Mr. Golden consults on issues shaping business and society in the 21st century. For years, fuel cells have been a disruptive technology that failed to meet expectations. The technology gained popularity in the late 1990s as Ballard Power stocks went up and down with the dot-com boom and bust. Since the early 2000s, fuel cells found narrow success in remote Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Gary Rackliffe, Vice President, Smart Grids and Grid Modernization, ABB Inc. Similar to the smart grid concept introduced by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007), “grid modernization” is both difficult to define and subject to varying opinions. In addition to operational and information technology (OT/IT) deployment, grid modernization builds on the previous smart grid Read more […]

This piece was originally published in the January/February 2019 issue of electroindustry. Ivan Jovanovic, Managing Director, Cable Accessories, G&W Electric Company For decades, oil-filled terminations have been the norm for high-voltage cables. Moving away from this traditional technology are pre-molded dry-type outdoor terminations. In 2018, 138 kV pre-molded dry-type outdoor terminations were installed in three different regions of the world for the first time: Malaysia, the Philippines, Read more […]